Tobacco Farmers Rally for Buyout

Source from:  PATRICK MALONEY, Free Press Reporter  01/19/2005

More than 40 tobacco farmers travelled to London yesterday to stop another Liberal campaign promise from going up in smoke. The crowd quadrupled at the pre-budget consultation hosted by several MPPs when the farmers, led by officials with Ontario's Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board, arrived to urge the government to keep its pledge and give their troubled industry $50 million in compensation in the upcoming provincial budget. "We are now a community in crisis," Fred Neukamm, chairperson of the tobacco board, said of his 1,000 members. "The collapse of the cod fishery and the demise of entire communities in Newfoundland (is) an appropriate analogy." Although the federal government has offered $67 million to buy out tobacco farmers hoping to leave the industry, the Ontario Liberals' $50-million campaign pledge -- essentially to help those same farmers with the transition -- hasn't been realized, Neukamm said. Yesterday's turnout of farmers, which was called the biggest crowd seen at any of the consultations acrsoss the province, speaks to the state of the tobacco industry, said Neukamm, who blames aggressive cigarette tax hikes for much of the trouble. The provincial tobacco industry, which provides 6,000 fulltime jobs, has seen its production plummet from 143 million pounds in 1999 to 88 million last year. The value of the crops was slightly under $200 million in 2004. "We've got growers who are wanting and needing to exit (the industry)," Neukamm said. "The frustration in our community is just mounting." Unless the province ponies up the promised dollars, Neukamm says some small Southwestern Ontario communities could end up "folding" because there's "nothing to replace that economic activity" brought by a healthy tobacco industry. Among the farmers on hand was Tom McElhone, a 35-year industry veteran from near Vanessa. The Ontario government owes farmers the help, McElhone said. "The taxing has gone up so drastically that there's no value left in any of the (farm) equipment or any of the buildings," he said. Farmers such as McElhone represent the "collateral damage" of Liberal Health Minister George Smitherman's war on the tobacco industry, said Toby Barrett, Tory MPP for Haldimand- Norfolk-Brant. Enditem